Monday, October 30, 2000		Learning Computers

Binder to organise MS Office

Organising things is an important part of execution. Productivity cannot be optimised without proper organisation and management.

MS Office without Binder is incomplete as in MS Office; one may have to work in various programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint simultaneously. Working on these programs individually may involve a lot of time and effort. Binder takes care of all this.

Binder is actually a kind of online notebook, which has a collection of programs rolled up into one. Thus for example, if you are working in MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint individually, then you can open a single Binder and add a Word document, Excel spreadsheet and PowerPoint presentation in it. You need not manage these files individually. They can be saved together in Binder as one file.

For the sake of understanding, this topic has been divided into two parts.

1) Main features

2) Uses and applications

Main features: Like any other component of MS Office, you can create, open, save, close, and print Binders. Each document in the Binder is considered a "section." To add a file to a Binder, click Add from File on the section menu, or simply drag and drop the file from Windows Explorer; to remove a file, click Delete on the section menu. It is worth mentioning that Binder enjoys a majority of features that are supported by other Office application like Word and Excel. Drag and drop feature is only one of those under which one can drag an object from the Windows Desktop and drop it to the left pane or the right pane of Office Binder. However, the only condition for the drag and drop feature is that the Binder should support the document type, which is to be dragged and dropped. In short, following are the type of files that can be added to a Binder: Microsoft Excel Workbooks (.xls), Microsoft Excel Templates (.xlt), Microsoft Excel Scraps, Microsoft Excel 4.0 Worksheets (.xls), Files saved in Microsoft Excel 5.0 or 7.0 as 4.0 Workbooks (*.xlw), SYLK (Symbolic Link) (.slk), Microsoft Word Documents (.doc), Microsoft Word Templates (.dot), Microsoft Word Scraps, Rich-text Format (.rtf), Microsoft PowerPoint Presentations, version 7.0 and 4.0 only (.ppt), Microsoft PowerPoint Templates (.pot), Microsoft PowerPoint Scraps besides the regular office Binder files.

Among other features, OLE is one more feature that adds a lot of value in Microsoft Binder. OLE is basically meant for linking of files and data. By using OLE in Binder any section can be linked with an external or internal files or data. Whenever these external or internal files change, the change is reflected as the Binder gets updated automatically. This is one feature, using which Binder can be put to a number of value added uses. Talking about Binder, MS Binder files can be saved and also located with the extension .obd. It can also be saved as a template (*.obt), as well as a Binder wizard (*.obz). The use of template in Binder can prove fruitful if some regular work is to be done by a number of persons.

You can create a template with the specific sections that a person will be working on and save as Binder Templates in the Save as Type box. Saving the Binder template file in the templates folder where MS Office was installed will put the newly-created template in the new dialog box on the File menu when users either select Start a New Document from the Windows Start Menu or from the Office shortcut bar. The template will also be available in the new dialog box when users click New on the File menu in an already created Binder or a new Binder. So this may help immensely in organising the work easily, even in a multi-person network

Basically, MS Binder has four menus and components viz. File, Section, Left pane and Right pane. The File menu of Binder contains commands for managing the files like open Binder, new Binder and save Binder, whereas the section menu deals with individual section management commands like add, add from file, delete, rename, hide, print file or hide section in Binder. However, the numbers of sections in a Binder are limited only by system resources in the Windows operating system. The left pane displays the icons of the individual section of a Binder, whereas in right pane the actual section, like the Word or Excel, is displayed.

Uses and application: The MS Binder is an often ignored but extremely useful component of MS Office. The Binder has full compatibility with the Internet and also OLE. Thus, you can manage all office files in Binder and can also use it for the purpose of the Internet. Here, you can save yourself from the botheration of working in different files and programs and can save a lot of time. Moreover, you can also use mail clients in Office Binder ’97. By clicking Send To on the File menu, you can send the Binder to mail recipient, routing recipient, or exchange folder. However, for using e-mail with Binder, a mail client like MS Exchange or MS Outlook must be installed on the computer. Moreover Binders can also be inserted into mail messages using the Insert/File command and browsing to the specific file to be included. However, if a Binder file is going to be sent through a mail client, users who will be receiving the Binder must have Office ’97 and Office Binder ’97 installed on their systems in order to read the file.

Besides, the Internet, the Binder also has compatibility with Access. Thus you can use the power of Access in the Binder. All you need to do is explore the use, where Access and Binder can be combined together and then see the power of MS Office in true sense. For example you can use Access in Binder, if you wish to create instant reports using many variables like daily sales report or production report etc.

Binder also has full support of visual basic, which makes it possible for you to use macros to automate the recurring type of jobs. You can write macros in the new visual basic editor and run them while in a Binder. To start the visual basic editor for programming, on the Tools menu, point to macro, and then click macro/visual basic editor from the supporting section in the Binder. The macro will be specific for the supporting section, but will still be available while in a Binder. Here it is worth mentioning that all components of Office support the visual basic module, which allows the use of macros. However, using the macros in Binder on the combination of these components can really make a difference in your working.

— Roli